GINA Rinehart's first major solo iron ore project, the $9.5 billion Roy Hill mine, is a hub of activity as it nears the development phase.

And for the likes of Drew Nimmo, the opportunity to work on Australia's next major iron ore mine was too good not to chase.

While a significant drop in the iron ore price and talk of the end of the boom has spooked the market, and the sceptics have turned their attention to the likes of Mrs Rinehart's project, questioning whether it will secure the funding to be built, it is still all systems go at the site to prepare it for construction.

There were 120 sightings for this week. This is one sighting less than last week, making a total of 4150 sightings for this year to date. On day 245 last year we had recorded 3746 sightings. This is 404 sightings up on the same time last year.

A new light rail network linking Perth's inner northern suburbs and the CBD is a "bold" project that will transform transport in the city, according to the state government.

The exact route and timetable for the 22 kilometre line was revealed today but the pricetag - expected to be well above $1 billion - will not be determined until at least 2014.

The Metropolitan Area Express, nicknamed MAX, will run from the Balga TAFE campus south along Alexander Drive and Fitzgerald Street to the CBD and then divert west to the Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre in Nedlands and east across the Causeway.

CHICAGO — A freight train struck the rear of another freight train in southwest Chicago early Sunday, derailing several rail cars and damaging a third freight train on an adjacent track, authorities said. Local reports said power was briefly knocked out to more than 2,500 people in the neighborhood.

There were no immediate reports of any injuries following the derailment shortly before 2 a.m. CDT Sunday, CSX rail spokesman Bob Sullivan told The Associated Press.

FEDERAL and state Labor governments are squabbling over the return of $41 million in commonwealth funding for a rail electrification project in South Australia that has been shelved indefinitely.

South Australian Transport Minister Pat Conlon said the state government had received $258.3m from the commonwealth of $293.5m originally committed for the project. He said $217.3m had been spent on a full track upgrade, necessary preliminary electrification works, contract design and preparation as well as $36m for rebuilt stations in the northern Adelaide suburbs of Elizabeth and Munno Para.

Mr Conlon said discussions were ongoing with federal Labor about whether the state could keep the unspent funds, but he refused to provide details of any negotiations with the commonwealth.

"The unspent funds are within a special deposit interest bearing account, held within the (Transport) Department," Mr Conlon said.

Virgin Rail has reacted to being branded a sore loser over the west coast contest by claiming that it has raised concerns over the franchising process with senior Conservative politicians over several years.

Tony Collins, chief executive of Virgin Rail, rejected claims made by the transport secretary, Justine Greening, that the company had only raised objections to the franchise regime once it had lost out to FirstGroup for the London-Glasgow contract. Speaking on BBC Radio 5, Collins said the rail operator had warned the Department for Transport [DfT] that it faced a repeat of the auctions for the east coast route, which saw GNER and National Express hand back the keys shortly after winning the franchise with aggressive bids.

"There must be some misunderstanding at DfT," said Collins. "We have had several meetings over the last two or three years where we have expressed our concerns over the bid process, how it evaluates the bids and how it leads to the sorts of failures we have seen on East Coast with NatEx and GNER."

WEST Australian Premier Colin Barnett yesterday defended his decision to go ahead with a $1 billion light rail network for Perth despite a potential $1.5bn hit to the state's budget from lower iron ore prices.

Mr Barnett said the states had to take the initiative on the economic development of the country because Julia Gillard and the federal government were failing to act.

The Metro Area Express system is being designed to carry 35,000 people a day in a network linking several northern suburbs to the city. It is being touted as a "transformational" public transport project to manage Perth's rapidly growing population and ease congestion.

The city's public transport use is expected to double by 2031 as Perth grows by about 50 per cent to as many as 2.7 million people.

LONDON (AFP) - Richard Branson's Virgin Rail Group on Monday succeeded in holding up a deal that threatens to strip it of its British rail franchise.

Virgin Rail launched a legal challenge last month after losing the long-term deal with the British government to run the major West Coast Main Line railway from London to Glasgow to rival FirstGroup.

The Department for Transport had earlier said that the legal move was "no reason" to delay the new contract signing -- due to take place on Tuesday -- but on Monday backtracked and accepted that the competition for the 13-year franchise remains alive.

"As a result of a legal challenge, which the government intends to defend robustly, we have not yet signed the contract with First West Coast, and consequently the competition remains live" transport minister Theresa Villiers said in a written statement.

The NSW government is considering distance-based road tolls, higher parking charges and asking trucking companies to help pay for highway upgrades as part of a $100 billion transport blueprint that includes new motorways and a second harbour rail crossing in Sydney.

Premier Barry O’Farrell and Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian would not commit to any of the projects, apart from the $8.5 billion North West Rail Link in Sydney and a second harbour rail crossing as part of a new CBD rail line.

MELBOURNE'S tram ''super stops'' were designed to improve passenger safety and disability access, but research shows they help speed up commuting. The platform stops - there are now 360 in Melbourne - reduce tram stopping times by about a third over kerbside stops, a Monash University study has found.

Activists have closed down a coal haulage railway construction project in the NSW Hunter Valley, to protest the rapid expansion of the export coal industry and its impacts on public health and the environment.

Activists arrived at the Hunter 8 Alliance construction compound at Rutherford before dawn this morning, erecting a wooden tripod to prevent access to the site. An activist is perched on the tripod, 10 metres over the gateway to the site, refusing to move.

Steve Phillips, spokesperson for protest organisers Rising Tide, said: “This railway construction project is designed purely for the benefit of coal corporations, yet it is being paid for with taxpayers’ money.”

Queensland Rail is trialling a new warning system to alert motorists when a train is approaching a rail crossing.
The valet system consists of lights embedded in the road for a distance of up to 150 metres before the crossing, which start flashing when the train is approaching, giving motorists more time to slow down and stop.
The three-month trial is at a level crossing between Ingham and Lucinda, in north Queensland, which is constantly used by cane and freight trains.
QR says it's drivers reported 472 near misses at rail crossings last year, making it clear existing systems were not working.

Sept 4 (Reuters) - Canadian National Railway Co will invest a third more this year than it has in recent years to expand and upgrade its fleet of rail cars and containers, prompted by strength in the economy, a company official said on Tuesday.

CN, Canada's biggest railroad, said it is buying more than 2,200 new freight cars as well as 1,300 new containers as traffic increases in a number of its markets, notably the coal export market and intermodal sector.

Intermodal traffic involves transport of a wide variety of goods by more than one form of carrier, such as rail and truck.

Federated Farmers Gisborne is disappointed the Wairoa to Gisborne rail line is to be mothballed under KiwiRail’s Infrastructure and Engineering Business Plan. The Federation now challenges the Government to increase road funding to support the region’s exporters.
"When KiwiRail says they are going to mothball the track beyond Wairoa to Gisborne, it is a euphemism for closure," says Hamish Cave, Federated Farmers Gisborne-Wairoa provincial president.

For years people have poo-pooed the idea of a privately-funded high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and Southern California because it ends at Victorville. The logic goes that who would want to drive to Victorville and then park and ride?
Apparently, according to a recent interview with one of the backers, we will. Anthony Marnell, a Vegas investor in the XpressWest project linking Southern California and Sin City, sat down with VegasInc, the town’s business journal. In a lengthy talk, Marnell makes the case that the Inland area is the real target market. Here’s his answer to the question “Why Victorville?”:

The State Government has rejected suggestions the 8-billion dollar North West rail link would have little impact on road congestion.

The Opposition says figures in the Government's Transport Master Plan, show that by 2031, when the link is due to open - the commute between Rouse Hill and Macquarie Park would be just one minute faster than by road.

Opposition Leader John Robertson says the Government has exposed the flaws in its own transport strategy.

In a never to be seen again event, five major rail freight companies will couple their latest locomotives together as one train to travel Adelaide - Port Augusta return on Friday 14 September.

Open to the public, this major event marks the 100th anniversary since the Governor General turned the first sod to construct the massive 1690km Trans-Australian Rail (TAR) line across the inhospitable Nullabor plains.

Connecting East and West for the first time, the project was a major undertaking for the new Commonwealth Government of the day and was a key condition for WA joining the federation.

The locomotives from CFCLA, Genesee & Wyoming, Pacific National, QR National and SCT Logistics have a combined horsepower of 20,000Hp, enough power to haul 7,100 tonnes up hill.

The event is a celebration of the importance of rails role in Australia™s history yesterday, today and tomorrow. To showcase the old and new, the once-in-a-lifetime modern train combination will align with a Pichi Richi steam train at Stirling North, South Australia to travel side-by-side into Port Augusta Train Station for the Official Ceremony.

Commuters waiting for rail replacement buses this afternoon suffered more chaos when the buses collided.

Buses had been called to Newport station after the Werribee line was suspended between Newport and Laverton because of overhead power equipment failures. But the delays were compounded when one of the buses tried to squeeze past the other and collided, witness Jay Kingcott said.

SCT Horsham freight will start using the new WCL yard on tuesday 11/09/12. WCL is moving their heavy lift forks this weekend to the Dooen site .WCL expects to handle up to 20.000 containers a year from the new facility soon. from 5 services a week to 9, according to the Wimmera Mail.

A gleaming engine, great clouds of steam, and many, many excited children - but this isn't platform 9 3/4, it's the Orange railway station, where the Heritage Express is ready for departure.

The Heritage Express is the work of the New South Wales Rail Transport Museum. On Saturday the train was running a shuttle service from Orange to Spring Hill, startling some local cattle and giving motorists waiting at level crossings an unexpected sight.

Fortescue Metals Group could consider selling its rail infrastructure if iron ore prices do not recover, as part of the company's wave of debt-reducing asset sales.

Speculation was rife in investment banking circles yesterday that Fortescue was mulling selling its critical rail network as a "nuclear option" if iron ore prices did not improve and the company needed to raise more capital to protect its cash flow and operating assets.

In the Pilbara yesterday to speak to Fortescue's workers about the drastic job cuts made this week, chief executive Nev Power told _WestBusiness _ that Fortescue was not yet drawing up plans to sell the rail lines linking its mines to Port Hedland but would "consider anything and everything on its merits" if an approach was made.

There were 119 sightings for this week. This is one sighting less than last week, making a total of 4269 sightings for this year to date. On day 252 last year we had recorded 3862 sightings. This is 407 sightings up on the same time last year.

RUNNING trains and trams later on weekends could help stem the tide of drunken bashings in the centre of Melbourne, according to one of the state's top policemen. Superintendent Rod Wilson, the man in charge of policing in the city centre, urged the state government and public transport operators to consider a trial whereby trains and trams would run until 3am or 4am to cope with some of the 380,000 people who flood the city each night on weekends.

''My main beef is that we've got to get fair dinkum about a public transport option to get people home,'' Superintendent Wilson said. ''At 3am, people are out in the street, they can't get back into any club, their night's over, but cab drivers are saying, 'No, not you', then they're hanging out in the road trying to flag down a police car they think's a cab.

A vline service between Melbourne and Ballarat has this morning struck a tree near Gordon (approximately 25 Kms from Ballarat) No passengers have been injured however the train has been disabled. Railpage understands the tree may be wedged under the train.

Vline is currently working on a plan to detrain the passengers and arrange travel through to their final destination. It is likely the line will be blocked for several hours until the train can be repaired.

The platform Republicans adopted at their convention included a call for full privatization and an end to subsidies for the nation's passenger rail operator, which gobbled up almost $1.5 billion in federal funds last year.

"It is long past time for the federal government to get out of the way and allow private ventures to provide passenger service," the platform said, arguing that taxpayers dole out almost $50 for every Amtrak ticket.

Long a political cudgel in the halls of Congress, Amtrak is among a number of transportation functions Republicans say should be turned over to the private sector — including airport security, also on the chopping block in the GOP platform. At its core, the debate juxtaposes differing visions about what role government should play in ensuring public access to services — even if they're losing money hand over fist.

Media speculation has suggest that Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group (ASX: FMG) and Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting could do a deal to share infrastructure, which could save the companies more than $1 billion each.

It was a hot issue at the start of 2011, but there hasn’t been much discussion of High Speed Rail (HSR) in the public domain since the first phase of the Federal Government’s study was released more than a year ago.

The numbers in the report had a chilling effect on some of the earlier enthusiasm for east coast HSR. In particular, the study estimated the cost to build a line from Brisbane to Melbourne would be $108 billion (plus rolling stock and 15% for procurement costs), none of which could be recovered from earnings.

The Global Mail took up the slack last week with this article, Fast times, fast trains (catch up Australia!) by Gordon Weiss. Another look at the issue is timely, because the second and final phase of the HSR study is due to be released later this year.

THE troubled $6 billion Oakajee port and rail infrastructure in Western Australia is facing a "slow death" in its current form as the falling iron ore price challenges the bankability of the Japanese-backed project and its proposed mine designed to support the infrastructure.

As Australia's major iron ore miners scale back expansion plans - including BHP Billiton shelving new port infrastructure - in the more profitable and iron-rich Pilbara region, analysts have questioned the viability of the Oakajee project to support the emerging Mid-West miners.

Japan's Mitsubishi was left to drive the project when previous joint venture partner Murchison Metals pulled out after admitting last year it could not fund its half of the infrastructure, which followed a series of cost blowouts, timeline delays and fights with potential customers.

Mitsubishi was also forced to take over Crosslands Resources, which is developing the Jack Hills mine in the Mid-West and is touted as one of the main assets to support the infrastructure, but industry sources have long challenged its economic viability, even when the iron ore price was higher.

When the cold, windswept plains of North Dakota opened to large-scale European settlement in the 1870s, the region was part of the Wild West. Resistance from native Americans had been largely broken and settlers from other parts of America poured in, seeking quick fortunes.

Nearly 150 years later, parts of North Dakota around the Bakken Shale formation – a vast, oil-bearing geological formation in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan – are boom towns again. Camps have been set up for temporary workers and infrastructure is straining to cope.

MELBOURNE ratepayers would be hit with a new public transport tax under a controversial plan by a major lobby group. The Committee for Melbourne says revenue raised could fund projects such as the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel and expansion of the Dandenong line.

The committee would not speculate on the likely cost of the levy, but in a scheme on the Gold Coast households pay $111 a year; a similar charge in Melbourne would pour almost $180 million a year into the coffers.

The committee said councils could collect a flat or variable levy from metropolitan ratepayers on behalf of the State Government.

PASSENGER trips on Melbourne trains dropped by almost 7 million last financial year, but the decline in rail patronage was more than matched by increases in tram and bus trips.

In total there were 536.8 million boardings on Melbourne's public transport system last financial year, a 3.4 per cent increase on 2011-12. But the boost in patronage is almost entirely attributable to more people taking to the city's buses, which carried a remarkable 17 million more people in 2011-12 than they did in 2010-11. There were 123.2 million bus trips in 2011-12 - a 15.8 per cent jump on the previous year. At the same time, the number of journeys on trains dropped 3.3 per cent, from 228.9 million to 222 million. It is the first financial year in which train patronage has declined since 1993-94. Overall, patronage has grown by 53 per cent in the past eight years.

NSW Minister for Roads and Ports Duncan Gay today provided an update on maintenance and upgrade work on the state's grain rail lines.

"We have a mantra in the O'Farrell Government, and that is to 'get the state moving again.'

"To help achieve this, over the next five years the government will be spending more than a quarter of a billion dollars on maintenance and upgrade works to the state's 996 kilometres of grain rail lines," Minister Gay said.

Since coming to office in March 2011, the O'Farrell Government has invested $61 million on maintenance and upgrade works to the state's grain lines - or more than $3 million a month - with about 100 people actively working on the tracks each year.

CityRail customers who purchase a seven day or 14 day MyTrain ticket will get a free day of travel on 1 October, to help reduce ticket queues after the Labour Day long weekend.

A Transport for NSW spokesperson said weeklies will be valid for eight days, and fortnightly tickets for 15 days if purchased between Sunday 23 September and Saturday 29 September 2012.

“Customers who buy their Weekly and Fortnightly MyTrain tickets next week willbenefit by gaining a free day of extra travel. The new expiry date will be automaticallyadded to their ticket,” the spokesperson said.

A train collided with a semi-trailer at the station on St Vincents Rd just after 6.30am.According to witnesses, the vehicle, which was carrying a heavy electrical transformer, appears to have broken down while parked across the tracks

THE first train service at the Wimmera Intermodal Freight Terminal at Dooen has marked a new era for Wimmera transport.

Terminal operator Wimmera Container Line unloaded and reloaded the first train at the site yesterday, which will provide a central location for grain handling and export processes and will improve access to grain ports.

Federal Labour Minister Albanese announced during a speach at Port Augusta yesterday additional funds totalling $16m would be made available for re-railing parts of the ARTC network west of Port Augusta. The funds thought to be for new track in the form of rails will be spent west of Port Augusta on the TAR in the area of Tarcoola.

WHILE the rest of the world is building high-speed rail, train travel between Australia's biggest cities is getting slower.

The timetable for train services between Melbourne and Sydney has recently been padded out by up to 85 minutes because operator CountryLink cannot keep to its published schedule. Little more than 10 of its twice-daily services to Sydney have arrived on time this year, although its Melbourne-bound services fared better.

Victorian operator V/Line will also rewrite its timetable in coming weeks to reflect its inability to keep time on the Albury line. Last month, just 2.8 per cent of V/Line trains between Melbourne and Albury ran on time.

There were 114 sightings for this week. This is five sighting less than last week, making a total of 4383 sightings for this year to date. On day 259 last year we had recorded 3975 sightings. This is 408 sightings up on the same time last year.

Fortescue Metals Group has won a court battle that could open Rio Tinto's and BHP Billiton's tightly-held rail lines in the remote iron ore-rich Pilbara region of Australia to rival mining companies.

The High Court ordered today that appeals be allowed to an earlier Competition Tribunal ruling that had overturned a government decision to allow Fortescue access to Rio Tinto's two lines. The case has dragged on for years, during which time Fortescue has developed its own rival line to export its ore.

The decision comes as spot prices for the steelmaking commodity abundant in the arid north of Western Australia slump and mining companies struggle to contain costs and remove capacity bottlenecks from their operations.

THE federal Coalition will promise today to take back the $2 billion allocated by the Gillard government for the Parramatta-to-Epping rail link and use it to complete the duplication of the Pacific Highway.

In a speech to the Nationals' federal conference in Canberra, the party's leader, Warren Truss, will say the money saved from scrapping the rail link will be added to the $3.6 billion already allocated in the federal budget for the highway, enabling a Coalition government to contribute $5.6 billion.

Canada’s oil patch is quietly sending large new volumes of oil on rail cars, even as it fights to overcome mounting opposition to plans for new pipelines to the U.S. Gulf Coast and Canada’s West Coast.

Though solid numbers are not available, industry sources say upward of 80,000 barrels a day of Canadian oil is now moving to market on rail cars. It’s a small fraction of the 2.3 million barrels a day the country exports, overwhelmingly by pipeline. But rail is rising fast: last year at this time, some 5,000 barrels a day left Alberta on trains. By next year, executives, oil producers and energy traders estimate it will exceed 200,000 barrels a day.

There are plenty of reasons why Melbourne was rated ‘most liveable’ city in the world for the second straight year. Its score of 97.5 per cent in the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) survey was close to the perfect score, with the city only docked points for climate, culture and petty crime.

When looking at the transport picture, however, it seems strange that it did not lose points for infrastructure. One of the biggest downsides to Victoria’s capitalis in the lack of a convenient connection from the airport to the city; when one compares Melbourne to the other great cities on the EIU list, this is a glaring omission. Tourists and business travellers alike have noted this lack of transport between the city proper and its airport.

There has been endless debate over the real need, viability and sustainability of a Melbourne Airport Link but it appears now that the idea is closer to reality than before.

“It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to lead the campaign for better public transport for the past nine years”, said Mr Bowen.

“In that time we’ve had some significant wins: all-night services on New Years Eve, more services moving Melbourne towards our ‘every 10 minutes to everywhere’ vision, and recognition from politicians of both sides of the importance of public transport, and of the issues of overcrowded and infrequent services and the lack of timetable co-ordination between modes.”“And the PTUA has grown in stature, with membership numbers increasing, the popular discount ‘Commuter Club’ ticket scheme, and regular member meetings giving a chance for our members to hear and ask questions of prominent players in Victorian public transport. And we have a strong presence in the media, as well as on social media.”

The nation’s largest rail freight group QR National Limited today announced a proposal to change the company’s name to Aurizon Limited.

Shareholders will be asked to approve the name change at the Company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Brisbane on November 7.

QR National Managing Director & CEO Lance Hockridge said the name change was the logical next step in the company’s transformation to becoming a world-class operator.

The new name is a combination of Australia and Horizon. It conveys the geographical scope of our expanding operations, as well as the extraordinary growth opportunities that are on the horizon for the company.

COUNTY taxpayers could end up footing the bill for work to electrify railways through Oxford.

Network Rail is due to start the process of electrification of railways through the county in order to introduce electric trains on some routes, and highways works may have to be carried out by the county council at the same time.

They hope to introduce electric trains on key routes such as the Oxford to London Rail route and the East-West rail route via Bicester to Milton Keynes.

The Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill 2012 establishes Australia’s first national rail safety investigator by tasking the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) with responsibility for investigating safety events on all metropolitan passenger and freight rail networks across Australia.

Currently, Australia’s rail safety system is a patchwork of regulators and laws.

From 1 January next year, the new national approach will see more investigations conducted across a greater range of safety matters.

The ATSB has a proven record in conducting independent investigations that achieve practical improvements to transport safety. The findings from the ATSB’s investigations will help improve overall safety and identify areas of improvement.

The ATSB’s rail safety investigation role will complement the work of the new National Rail Safety Regulator.

PLANS for a train overpass to ease traffic congestion at the Oaklands Park rail crossing have been unveiled by the State Government.

The $100 million overpass would go over Morphett Rd and include an elevated station, accessed by lifts and stairs.

The unfunded plan includes up to 100 more carparks at the station, as well as walking and cycling paths.

A spokesman for Transport Minister Patrick Conlon said a $2 million study into how to ease traffic congestion at the intersection of Diagonal and Morphett roads found an overpass to be the most cost-effective solution.

Brisbane's multi-billion-dollar underground rail project is not funded by the regional infrastructure fund tied to the Gillard government's mining tax so it is misleading to link the two issues, a federal government source says.

The revamped $4.5 billion cross-river rail project is currently before the federal government's funding advisory body, Infrastructure Australia, for consideration.

Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan has previously threatened to dock states some of their federal GST or infrastructure funding if they raised state-based mining royalties.

ABOUT 3000 fines have been issued by the new armed guards patrolling Melbourne's train stations in the seven months since the Victorian government began deploying its latest crime-fighting tool.

One hundred and forty Protective Services Officers (PSOs) now patrol 20 of Victoria's 215 metropolitan train stations, after Hoppers Crossing and Reservoir stations were added to the network on Tuesday night.

Acting Premier Peter Ryan said about 3000 offences had been detected by the PSOs since February as part of their role which includes making arrests and detecting breaches of bail.

Visiting Alstom's factory in Ballarat, Mr Mulder said the first of the new trains is arriving five months early.
"These trains have the highest level of locally sourced input ever seen in the delivery of X'Trapolis trains to Melbourne, providing about 65 full-time jobs in Ballarat, with another 70 indirect jobs," Mr Mulder said.
"They will modernise and expand Melbourne's train fleet as new services are delivered following the completion of the Sunbury Electrification Project.
"Metro services on the new Sunbury line will begin on 18 November this year, bringing a completely new train timetable and a boost to train services in Melbourne's growing north-western suburbs.

There are new details on a proposal to remove the rail switch yard from downtown Sioux Falls.

The terms being hashed out but under the possible agreement, Burlington Northern Santa Fe would sell most of the downtown rail yard to the city, which would clean it up and develop it for commercial use. It involves far less construction than a decades old plan that has all but been scrapped by the city. City officials say the news is a “breath of fresh air.” The city council is encouraged too.

“You have to be optimistic about it at this point,” Councilor Dean Karsky said following Tuesday’s briefing.

A CRITICAL piece of infrastructure for Gina Rinehart's $9.5 billion Roy Hill project has been deferred.
Macmahon Holdings confirmed to PerthNow that tendering for a key contract for the development of the iron ore mine had been deferred.
PerthNow understands the tender process will not recommence until at least next financial year as Roy Hill attempts to sure up funding for the project.

A single European rail network with genuinely open competition and common standards is urgently needed to let trains relieve congested roads, according to EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas. He has vowed to push ahead with reforms requiring national rail networks to open up, which could lead to direct trains from Britain to destinations across the continent.

At the opening of Innotrans, Europe's largest transport convention, in Berlin, Kallas said €20bn (£16bn) of a €50bn European infrastructure fund could be made available for national transport projects to make the networks interoperable, helping stimulate growth. He proposed a single central rail agency to certify all new rolling stock built to a single standard across the continent.

GLOUSTER, Ohio -- The Perry County Sheriff’s Office said five people have been transported to area hospitals after two rail carts crashed at the Buckingham Coal Company Underground in Glouster, Ohio Wednesday morning.

The sheriff’s office tells NBC4 the office received a 911 call from the Buckingham Coal Company Underground located on Township Road 295 reporting a crash between two rail carts in the mine at about 7:13 a.m. Wednesday.

The accident happened at shift change Wednesday morning when two track-mounted carts collided at a dip in the tracks.

The Federal Railroad Administration gave its approval Wednesday for construction on the first phase of California's high-speed rail system, clearing the final technical hurdle for construction to start next year on a 65-mile span from Merced to Fresno.

The decision supports the California High-Speed Rail Authority's so-called hybrid alternative, which state officials say is the least costly approach and the one that is least harmful to the environment. Rail authority Chief Executive Officer Jeff Morales said the federal decision will allow the project to break ground next year.

Auckland's public transport system has taken a quantum leap since the first diesel train shuffled into the $211 million Britomart station nine years ago, but it remains a political punchbag.

Although train patronage has more than quadrupled and the overall system including buses and ferries carried 36 per cent more passengers last year than in 2003, there is concern about slackening momentum when Auckland desperately needs Government buy-in for its next big transformational step - the central rail link.

Fortescue Metals Group chief executive Nev Power was back in an upbeat mood yesterday, talking up the prospects of the company's expansion and potential deals with Gina Rinehart's Roy Hill project as FMG brought an end to another of its major debt issues.

Speaking at the opening of Fortescue's second train unloader at Port Hedland yesterday, Mr Power was happy to fuel talk of a potential rail deal with Mrs Rinehart, saying he would welcome an approach over shared infrastructure from the Roy Hill project.

"We would welcome discussions with Roy Hill, or for that matter any of the other potential projects in the Pilbara," he said.

"We recognise that there are a lot of other iron ore projects in that area that we could provide a rail service for, so absolutely.

A surprise profit warning from Norfolk Southern Corp. sent shares tumbling across the entire North American railway industry, hammering Canadian carriers along with their U.S. counterparts.

Analysts say Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. experienced collateral damage from Norfolk’s surprise announcement that it expected earnings of $1.18 (U.S.) to $1.25 a share in the third quarter. The projection, made after the market closed Wednesday, fell far short of the $1.63 a share that analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected, and stunned investors.

The front of the MetroCard is not the only new territory being given over to commerce. This year, for the first time, [New York's] Metropolitan Transportation Authority began allowing ads to cover passenger windows on buses. Calvin Klein and Broadway producers embraced the spot.

Last night the Vline passenger service from Melbourne to Sheppaton (GVL) train 8333 collided with an empty vehicle which was stuck on the railway tracks near the town of Wandong.

The car believed to have been driven by a 19 YO man who was attempting to cross the tracks some distance away from a purpose built railway crossing. The car became stuck on the tracks and despite the man's best efforts to remove the vehicle, including the use of a car jack, his efforts failed.

There were 117 sightings for this week. This is three sighting more than last week, making a total of 4500 sightings for this year to date. On day 266 last year we had recorded 4039 sightings. This is 407 sightings up on the same time last year.

The free Wi-Fi offered by Queensland Rail to Brisbane commuters is one of the more generous options available in Australia, but how well does it perform in practice? Road Worrier decided to find out.

The Queensland Rail offer isn't the only free public transport Wi-Fi deal in Australia. Sydney Ferries has free coverage, and there have been smaller scale trials in Adelaide, Queensland and Sydney. However, for system-wide scope, the Brisbane deal takes some beating.

THE Baillieu government has been accused of condemning central Victorian train travellers to slower journeys and damaging the environment in a bid to save money as it rehabilitates the Seymour railway line.

Thousands of degraded wooden sleepers on the regional line are being replaced with new wooden sleepers harvested from redgum forests in New South Wales, after the government opted not to lay concrete sleepers because of higher cost and pressure from freight rail operators.

Concrete sleepers are held to be superior to wooden ones because they last more than three times longer, which makes them environmentally friendlier, and because they enable trains to run at faster speeds.

improvements to rail lines to Esperance Port would be needed to cater for the export of an extra 15 million tonnes of ore a year.

According to Yilgarn Iron Producers Association chairman Jonathan Lea, the State Government-owned Esperance rail line is in better shape than expected, and would need minimal capital work before being able to carry up to 26mtpa of ore - enough to support the initial expansion of Esperance's port for iron ore producers.

Sometime after 8 p.m. Thursday, a train will come roaring out of the north from Delaware toward Perryville at 165 miles per hour, matching the fastest speed ever attained on a U.S. rail line.

After putting on the brakes, the Acela Express will make the 13-minute run back to Wilmington before sprinting down the track for seven more round trips by 2 a.m.

Similar tests also are to be carried out this week and next on three other sections of track — in New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts — the first step in upgrading passenger service in those areas to 160 mph. Federal regulations require tests of 5 mph above maximum operating speeds.

“Perth Airport will continue to experience substantial passenger growth and it is critical transport infrastructure is planned to ensure adequate services are in place to cater for the projected demand,” said Minister for Transport Troy Buswell. “The State Government has demonstrated its commitment to the development of the airport precinct and associated infrastructure with the $1 billion Gateway WA project which encompasses a number of road network improvements to facilitate effective movement of people and freight.”

Buswell added that it is extremely important that commuters be given options in finding ways to get to and from the airport.

THE community has been left in the dark about the State Government's project to separate train lines at Goodwood, residents say.

Millswood Cres residents, whose homes back on to the train line, say they have been given little or no information about imminent works to separate the freight and commuter rail lines near Leader St.

John and Mary Vanderkolk, who have lived on Millswood Cres for 32 years, were angry about the lack of information. Transport Department staff visited the couple's house about six weeks ago to inspect a tree close to the property's back fence.

QR National's $2 billion heavy haul rail system – which proposes to link mines in the Galilee and Bowen Basins to Queensland ports in Abbot Point and Hay Point areas – is a step closer to approval following the release of its environmental impact statement (EIS) terms of reference (ToR).

Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney announced yesterday the release of the Central Queensland Integrated Rail project's ToR, which he says take into account 21 submissions from public and advisory agencies on the project’s draft terms of reference.

Police say a mother will probably be charged with allegedly driving her car with her two children inside in front of a passenger train.

The woman and her two sons, thought to be aged about five and eight, were "extremely fortunate" to escape uninjured in the crash at a level crossing near Darfield, west of Christchurch, about 5.15pm yesterday, Sergeant Dan Harker said.

"The car bounced back off the train rather than getting sucked under it. A tenth of second difference and they would have been hit with the full force of the train, and that would have been awful."

China is set to complete a strategically significant 253-km rail link from Lhasa to Shigatse, near its border with Nepal, by 2014 — a year ahead of schedule.

Railway authorities say the rail link, which is an extension of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, will be completed in two years’ time and will have an annual freight capacity of 8.3 million tonnes, as reported by state-run Xinhua news agency.

China began construction on the rail line — half of it on bridges and in tunnels through the mountains of Tibet — in 2010. The line will also run through the Grand Canyon of the Brahmaputra, or Yarlung Zangbo as it is known in Tibet.

An internal document urging KiwiRail workers not to stand on rail bridges or railway sleepers marked for replacement raises further concerns about the state of the country's rail network, New Zealand First MP Brendan Horan says.

Mr Horan said the document was issued to workers after a man fell through a decaying sleeper this month. It warned workers to avoid walking on rail bridges and especially marked sleepers.

Is it possible to visit every railway station in Melbourne in a day, and make a detour to Stony Point for an added degree of difficulty?

It's a maths problem likely to defeat all but the most numerically gifted of trainspotters, but high school teacher Andrew Lorimer-Derham and his class of VCE students from Alexander Secondary School believe they have the answer, and they're putting it to the test today.

New Zealand’s state-owned rail operator KiwiRail confirmed this week that it is to axe 158 jobs. Infrastructure and Engineering staff (I & E) are taking the brunt of redundancies, reducing the division’s 714-strong work force to 556. The company is looking to shave $200 million from its books over the next three years, including $14 million per annum in wages, and there is talk of a second round of job cuts in March. KiwiRail currently employs 4,100 staff nationwide.

The Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU) has played the central role in imposing the cuts. Plans to make the workforce bear the brunt of the cost-cutting program were first outlined in joint “consultation” meetings in July, at which the RMTU boasted it had put forward “all options for achieving cost savings” (see: “New Zealand rail union collaborates with job cuts”). The final scale of the cuts was arrived at after “weeks” of discussions with the union, according to KiwiRail. Rick van Barneveld, I & E general manager, noted: “We’ve worked very closely with the union and staff to ensure all those affected have the information they need, and understand the process.”

IF you have ever fed a $20 note into a CityRail ticket machine and walked away with a pocket full of change, then you will appreciate a new Facebook page sending up the network.

Frustrated commuters have turned to Facebook to vent their anger with the city's train system, with a new page CityRail Memes lampooning the network's woes attracting almost 21,000 likes in just five weeks.

The page features dozens of humorous images satirising CityRail's failures with no section of the train system immune.

Canadian National Railway is exploring whether its feasible to use cheap and relatively clean natural gas to power its trains instead of diesel.

To start out, CN has retrofitted two of its existing diesel-fired locomotives to run mainly on natural gas,. It's testing the locomotives along the 480-kilometre stretch between Edmonton, a key energy processing and pipeline hub, and the oilsands epicentre of Fort McMurray, Alta.

Longer term, CN and three other partners are looking at developing an all-new natural gas locomotive engine as well as a specialized tank car to carry the fuel.

Natural gas giant Encana Corp. (TSX:ECA) is providing the fuelling, which, along with maintenance, will be taking place in Edmonton.

It’s obvious how the passengers riding the Northlander feel about the Ontario government’s move to kill the train that runs between Toronto and Cochrane and replace it with buses.

“I think it’s wrong-headed,” says Laurell Ritchie, a retired CAW representative who takes the train from Toronto a few times a year to visit friends in South River.

“It’s stupid. There are other options ... Everyone talks about going green, so rather than cut it out they could reduce the schedule to something like three times a week and have a promotion campaign, instead of clogging up Highway 400 from here to kingdom come.”

The Liberals are doing away with the Northlander as part of a plan to sell the Crown-owned Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC). It’s a cost-saving measure tied to reducing the provincial deficit. The province says it spent $100 million in subsidizing the ONTC in 2011.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A strike by railway unions in Belgium next Wednesday is set to disrupt Eurostar passengers travelling between London and Brussels and hit the Thalys high-speed services between France and Germany.

The strike will run for 24 hours from 4.00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, a spokesman for Belgium's socialist FGTB union said on Thursday.

MELBOURNE'S railway stations are badly designed, unpleasant places that will be incapable of handling predicted passenger growth, an influential public transport academic says.

Melbourne University transport strategist Chris Hale argues that the city's railway stations are well behind world standards and need major investment to turn them into vibrant public places that can also efficiently handle peak-hour commuter bursts.

AS CANBERRANS wrap their heads around another attempt to get light rail built in their city, Westside Los Angeles is enjoying ''Carmageddon 2''. We love sequels. ''Carmageddon'' is a fancy name for the closing of the wildly popular 405 freeway - a main artery between LA and everywhere - for the demolition of a bridge.

Last year at this time they shut the freeway, and expectations of horror, anarchy and much hair on fire turned out to be wrong. We all stayed home, held hands, sang songs and survived. And the freeway reopened 12 hours early. This year there's much less pre-closure ''buzz'', and marketing, and a general sense of complacency … so right now I may be atop my roof, shotgun in hand, praying I see the dawn. I don't own a shotgun.

There were 119 sightings for this week. This is two sighting more than last week, making a total of 4619 sightings for this year to date. On day 273 last year we had recorded 4212 sightings. This is 407 sightings up on the same time last year.

A VIBRANT cafe strip is the heartbeat of the Perth suburb of Leederville, just 3km from the CBD. Oxford Street is a mix of cafes, shops, a fashionable small movie theatre and home to the city's famous Kailis fish market.

It also neighbours picturesque Lake Monger, an undulating parkland teaming with birdlife and popular with cyclists, walkers and joggers.

The suburb's house price sales have dropped 0.3 per cent over the past five years, but it has performed better than any other Perth suburb in the 12 months to June.

NSW Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian has defended the government’s newly-released draft transport master plan for the State, which has been criticised for being light on detail of when projects will start and how they will be funded.

She said with the State’s population set to grow by more than 25 per cent by 2031, the government was determined to “under promise and over deliver” on transport.

“This is the first time we have a plan that incorporates all of NSW, not just major cities, and it looks at an integrated, strategic plan for public transport, roads and freight,” Ms Berejiklian told The Land.